The State of the Burger Union

Hello Burger fans! I know you are all anxiously awaiting the announcement of the finalists! (Are you even reading this part or are you just scrolling down to look for names?? ;-) )

Here is where we stand, currently:

10 POTENTIAL Finalists have been notified via email/USPS mail etc. We are currently waiting to hear back from (some of) those 10 potential finalists. The potential finalists must sign affidavits and paperwork declaring that the burger recipe is their own work, they are eligible based on the rules (state and otherwise) etc., prior to being announced as a finalist. These affidavits are due back to Sutter Home by August 26, although if we get them all back and our legal team approves them, we can give out names and recipes sooner.

As soon as the Sutter Home legal team has reviewed and verified the affidavits, we will post the 10 Finalists and their winning recipes on the website. Meanwhile, those Potential Finalists are sworn to secrecy and can not reveal their status.

To those who have not been notified...despair not! A potential finalist may choose not to participate or there may be a restriction that could prevent them from participating, in which case we will be contacting an alternate potential finalist.

So stick close, because as soon as we have all the paperwork turned in and approved, you can bet your spatula we will get those names and recipes up pronto!

No email...will check the mail but my guess is that email would come first...so sad today! Well, it wasn't meant to be this time, but I haven't had this much fun/nervous anticipation in a long time, so I plan on trying again. Hope the rest of you who didn't get a shot this year will join me!

hi everyone, regarding notification of recipes that have been dq'd unfortunately we don't have the manpower to notify every person because we get so many in that don't pass legal. It truly is a bummer because our judges miss out on lots of tasty recipes due to small rule infractions.

I'm Bummed. Ok, where is the burger party for those of us who didn't make the cut. Each of us seems very proud of our recipes. I want to try a few of yours and I'd be more than happy to make mine for you.

I'm with Andrew, we take the time and $$$ out of our lives to create these burgers the least they can do is give a short email or even a blog with 1st name last intl. and city and a short reason with this persons burger wasn't chosen and then the next year they will have something to move forward with and offer a "BETTER" burger to the judging committee. Also publish the names of the 10 who qualified(it's not national security) because who knows the mail doesnt always arrive and someones computer could go down but someone they know could be checking the list.

Im worried that maybe my mail got lost or something crazy! Deep down, I keep making up all these reasons for not getting an email or call or letter. I do think a thank you email should be sent to all of the people who submitted recipes, just to say thanks for the effort. That way we wont be waiting in vain. But its always fun to try, im competitive and have already started for next years contest!!! Better luck next time.

Tess and Andrew, if you read more about the BBB contest, you'll see that with thousands of entries, there is no possible way to send out emails, notifications, or messages to all.
And the 10 qualifiers have to qualify themselves before Suter Home releases the names to the public. Right now they are only notified. After contracts are signed, I'm sure the names will be for all to see. If you were chosen, I'm sure you would want the same privacy.

Quite the sad day :(, BUT, it was really fun creating some great recipes, and having the opportunity to share our experiences with one another through this blog. :)

Thanks to Sutter Home for having this blog available for all who entered! It was great knowing that whether it was excitement, anxiety, nervousness, etc., that everyone was THERE at one point or another through preparation for this contest.

Like most of you have mentioned, we'll have to come out with grills a blazin' for next year! :) Look at it this way, we'll have 12 months to tweak and perfect our recipe(s). ;)

Not too sure who the potential finalist are, but congratulations to them all!

When I listened to James McNair's podcast interview and he stated that one of the main themes for burger entries this year was Spanish with Manchego Cheese, Smokey Paprika, and Serrano Ham, did anyone else put two and two together that this was the $25,000 Grand Prize winning sandwich in last year's Mezzetta Make That Sandwich Contest?????....nothing like capitalizing on another's Grand Prize idea!!!! Check out the website at www.makethatsandwich.com. Too bad if the judges weren't aware of that, or maybe it is not a criteria to be original.

Hey everyone, I've really enjoyed reading these blogs and commiserating with the rest of you who didn't make the cut. I agree with Rob, and I would love to try each of your amazing creations. I think that those of us who have our names highlighted have a link to contact us outside the blog. So, feel free to get in touch and keep the burger-flame ignited for next year. Who knows? Maybe a finalist won't make the cut and one of us will be selected after all? We shouldn't lose out on hope. Even if a little pity party feels good. ;) Trust me, I know.

For everyone who didn't get a notification just like me Ha Ha. Please don't think that your burgers are not good. I'm sure we have unique recipes. There are a lot of factors that we don't know, but can try again next year yeah.

It would be great to find out why some of the recipes did not make it in. Good luck to all the contestants. This has been a fun competition. I came up with a recipe that I shared with my friend Jody and she cooked it for all her friends during a trip to Fire Island and now they love the burger and make it quite often. That feels really good to be able to share this recipe with her. That's what it's all about sharing your love of food with others.

Oh No, I really thought this was the year?!? Oh well. I love this contest, and if I am right, I have been entering for ten years and I will enter again next year. It is really not about getting to CA for me, although that would be nice, it is more about the event leading up to the contest entry. So many friends come to dinner in the two or three months prior to my submitting the recipe. We have so much fun, grilling , chilling and testing burgers. They are why I enter the contest.

I am curious as to the total number of recipes that are submitted ... can you share that?

Hello everyone. This is my first year for the contest and I am so thrilled to have been apart of it!!!! I plan on entering from now on. I just wish we could know why our burgers weren't chosen...I.E. visual appeal, ingredients, what? What bugs me is that we didn't even get an appreciation or automatic response for submitting in an e-mail. I am a tech person, I know that it's easy to set something like that up, especially if there were only 3,000 recipes submitted. I really don't know if I am totally out yet either. Some of my postal mail has been sent to my old address because I just bought a house and some of the old mail has been going to my old address!! Who knows, but at any rate no matter what happens, I am not going to give up. I am a creative person and a non-quitter. I hope all of you continue to create unique burger recipes! Keep on Grillin'!!!

I think it would be great if at least the top 30 recipes could win something like the Build A Better Burger Cookbook or a bottle of Sutter Home Wine (in coupon form) as a consolation prize, and the winners' names mentioned in a top 30 winners list. This is such a tough, prestigious competition that it would be thrilling to at least make the top 30 and know about it. If recipes made it to the tasting/preparation round, that is a great honor, and contestants would want to know!

yes rob, I did read all the rules, notes, comments and regs and yes I do know they get thousands of recipes but there are computer programs made to simply spit out a thankyou for applying but you didnt qualify. I like the contest and I will apply again but the contestants in any contests do better and apply themselves harder with feedback and no I could care less about notification privacy, this is a public contest and you are made aware of that in the rules and regs when you enter the contest(if you read the rules and regs you will notice this), so you don't expect privacy.

I agree, this is a competition, and as far as privacy is concerned, I'm sure whoever was chosen in the top 10 would want everyone to know, I know I would, but I also would respect the rules and guidelines because it is set in stone, but Tess I do agree with you. I know I would want the whole world to know!!! To be in the top 30 would be awesome for everyone to see. This competition is brutal. I had spent many days working and tweaking my recipe. I found out 2 months prior to the competition that there was a competition and little time to prep. I do feel that a notification should be sent, just to say "thank you,". It's a lot of HARD work to work on a recipe, and then to keep trying it over and over again. Not to mention $$$$$. I am going to continue to enter, I hope everyone else continues to try as well!

I didn't make the cut. Reading from some of the comments above we all should have received a "participation trophy" like kids soccer. Come on folks, this is first and foremost fun. Those deemed the best were chosen. Try harder next year.

Alas.....no notification........whoa is me! It really has been fun, though! Developing the recipe(s), trial & error, tweaking this and that, coming up with a great recipe (everyone I made my hamburgers for said they were terrific!)...checking the rules at least 100 times before submitting my recipe(s)...the waiting and anticipation.. reading all of the comments. I really have enjoyed this experience and thank Sutter Home for hosting such a wonderful event. I will certainly be back next year, especially after watching the Food Network on Friday night showing the 2006 (I think - I missed the beginning of the program) BBB contest. Very intense, but fun at the same time. Got me all fired up again! Well, back to the drawing board! Hope everyonr else tries again as well!

Hi Mike, I have a hard time really believing that people wouldn't want to know if they made the top 30...I believe this to be a "prestigious" competition, not to be compared with childishly wanting a kids' soccer trophy by wanting to merely know if you made the top 30 where the honorable judges actually test your recipe....that's an honor, in my opinion! So I don't receive your "scolding".....I've been in plenty of contests where even the top 100 are notified.....it's gratifying, to say the least!

Kat,
No scolding. Just trying to remind everyone that this was about fun -- don't need justification. Sorry for adding my personal opinion. As a friend of mine once told me, "what did the Soviet Union get for coming in second in the Cold War?" If I didn't make the finals I don't really care if I was in the top 30 -- that's just me.

I see Mike's point. Do we really need some one to say "you didn't make it, try next year"? The comments show that none of us are going to give up. As for a reason we didn't make the grade, it wasn't good or creative enough to get selected. I can't wait to see what was selected.

It would be nice to know the top 5 reasons that entries were DQed. I'm assuming that would be fairly easy to compile. I read the rules several times, and none of them seemed to be too difficult...yet half of the entrants are DQed. There's got to me something that we're missing.

Mike, as for a lot of people and me being one of them, I do care to see where I placed, if it were the top 30, I'd be thrilled!!! I don't see anything wrong in someone wanting to know where they stood, not to mention if we are such "big" competitors, it's good to know what needs to done in order to make it to the big stage.

Tara, I don't think anyone is getting mad, I'm sure not upset, I just felt like there should have at least been a notification to at least say thank you for participating. I'm a pretty upbeat person and I am not at least bit sad about not being chosen, all I know is tha

Sorry, accidentally submitted before I was finished, but to continue, all I know is that this was a LOT of fun. I enjoy cooking as much or more than the next person, and competing is so exciting. It is a LOT of hard work and money, which I feel that people aren't mad, just a bit disappointed that since we spent a lot of money, days, and hours on this, there should have at least been some sort of automatic notification. I feel that they might have been frustrated at some of the battering comments that were made, but not mad at the competition, there is a difference. I know that I am going to keep trying as long as this contest continues. So I am already preparing for next year, good luck to all in the future!!!!!

Over the years I have competed in recipe contests. I have placed in 10, and received letters acknowledging how many recipes were entered and where I placed. For instance, one letter said, "We received 2,700 entries this year. We are happy to inform you that you have placed as a finalist in the top 50." I received a cookbook from that contest. It's a lot of fun to know. I have saved all my award letters over the years even though I didn't win the grand prize. They are like "trophies" to me :) just the way last year's grand prize BBB winner, Kristine Snyder, values her trophy. (Read her hall of fame comments.) I guess some people look at it like it's Grand Prize or nothing.....not me.....fun is fun....and it's fun even getting a letter! (And it makes me try all the harder next time.)

My passion is cooking for family and friends. It is how I relax. It is another way to express my love for them. This is the first time I entered a national recipe/cooking contest. I was disappointed I wasn't chosen but I got more out of finally doing it than anything else. My comments were meant to only take the focus off of "tell me why I wasn't good enough" (which is how I interpreted the posts about not being notified) and put it back on where I believe it needs to be.

I cook for fun. Eveything else is gravy. Next year, I try again. This spurs me on to enter more contests. The way I see it, despite the judges decision, I won. I won because I took a chance. I won because it brought my family and friends together. I won because I realized happiness has less to do with my work and more to do with doing what I love for those I love. Good luck next year to all -- I'll be back!

Hey Mike - I love what you said. That's right, we all won if we include the tasting parties and experimentation and the final pride we felt in the submission recipe. In the end, we are competing for personal taste - and the judges may have a different idea of what tastes good. I have been wondering if toning it down for next year is better than innovative and new? It's hard to tell, since it's people we're up against. I know that one person's sweet can be another's sour. ((Sigh)) Keep entering contests folks, and don't give up. There are a lot of big ones running right now, so why not take that burger recipe over the hill and try it out somewhere else? You never know! Keep in touch - I'd love to hear from you (my name is a link)..."Tomorrow, you're only a day away!"

I have been reading all the entries on here and have to say I agree that it was alot of fun coming up with an orginal recipe to enter in this contest. I also must say that I do wish that I had received some sort of email response after submitting (like others have mentioned) because how am I to know they actually received it? Maybe there were some sort of technical issues on their end and it didn't get through, at least sending an automatic email message stating we've received your entry would aleviate the worry. I also too wish that if a recipe was DQ'ed that they would tell you what rule wasn't followed. Otherwise how am I to know what needs to be corrected if I choose to submit the same recipe again??? I'm not upset or anything and I will enter again next year I just think there are some things they could tweek with the entry process.

Greetings fellow burger enthusiasts,
I have a crazy idea. We should create a misfits burger recipe book. Packed full of delicious rejects from the BBB Contest. Some of you have amazing ideas and great attitudes. Especially Bryanne Salazar #43 on this blog. Check out her blog site.
Keep on Grillin!
-Christopher

Hey Christopher (mucho gusto!) Thank you so much for the props. I love the idea - Misfit Burger Recipes, it practically rolls off the tongue! I'm down! You know where to find me and my "Smokin' Hot Mango Bacon Gouda Burger on Ciabatta" Who's joining us?

I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but our submitted recipes now totally belong to Sutter Home. I believe that is clearly stated in the rules. They have sole rights to them. We could not publish them in a book,(or even on the internet, for that matter) or enter them into another contest. And other contests clearly state that the recipe you enter cannot have been previously entered in any other contest. You may, however, I believe, enter your same recipe again next year to BBB with updates/corrections. Last year's Grand Prize Winner made tweaks on her recipe from the previous year, and won. Read her comments in the Hall of Fame.